I thought divorce at 33 meant failure—until I reinvented my life in Amsterdam

"I felt like a new person, free from expectations and from the life I once thought I wanted."

My marriage ended in February 2019, and by April, I had three months in Europe loosely mapped out. The plan was to spend the last four weeks of my adventure in Amsterdam to connect with my Dutch roots. My father is from the Netherlands, and during past trips to visit my Opa and Oma (Dutch for Grandpa and Grandma), I had always wondered what living in Amsterdam might feel like, but I had never been courageous enough to find out.

The closest I came to moving to Amsterdam was during a half-assed job search when I was 27. Back then, I was launching a relationship with my soon-to-be husband. I sent out no applications. I followed no leads. I shelved that dream and followed a conventional life path because it had felt safer at the time. Now here I was, 33, and navigating, instead, the murky waters of divorce.

I felt ashamed, awash in failure, and grieving the death of an idea that I had for my life. I had rushed into a marriage with a “nice on paper” man, but he hadn’t been the right one. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do in my late 20s: get married. I’d better partner up if I didn’t want to end up alone, I thought. But five years later, everyone around me was married and having kids, and I was starting over, reinventing myself and my future. And now, I was left to find myself all over again. In Europe. Alone.

***

After spending a week in Geneva, I bounced between cities — London, Vienna, Prague, Budapest — eventually arriving in Milan, where I met two childhood friends from New York. Traveling alone was fun and healing: it gave me the time and space I needed to process my divorce and to get comfortable with being alone again. I enjoyed meeting new people and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, but seeing two familiar faces midway through my journey also grounded me.

By early June, I had finally touched down in Amsterdam, once again alone.

I picked up the keys to a canalside apartment and moved into my four-week rental. It wasn’t luxurious, with its narrow hallways and steep, blue carpeted stairs configured like a ship’s ladder, but the view made up for it. The front of the apartment was lined with large windows that framed the canal below. Sunlight spilled over the small, red eat-in kitchen with its light-wood IKEA eating table that doubled as my desk. I thought I’d only live in that cozy apartment for a month. I didn’t realize that it would be the springboard for an entirely new life.

I unpacked, set up my laptop, and sought out ways to meet new people. With only a few acquaintances in town, I turned to Meetup, where I found jogging groups, restaurant clubs, and a beer-drinking circle. One summer night, I sat at a terrace table in Vondelpark, sipped my beer, and wondered if the strangers surrounding me would become friends, or, at the very least, drinking buddies.

I was added to a WhatsApp group, through which I discovered a weekly live music event on the rooftop of a hotel. It was swarming with expats. Friday nights became a ritual, filled with music, laughter, and new connections, including the friends I call family today and, eventually, the sweet younger man I now share my life with.

I felt like a new person, free from expectations and from the life I once thought I wanted. I was released from being a “good wife,” and from trying to make things work, liberated from marriage, the kids I thought I was supposed to have because everyone else was having kids, because everyone else was choosing the so-called “normal” life path. Cycling around Amsterdam, wind blowing through my hair, my own choices felt right. This moment felt like it was meant to be, like all the choices I had made — even the wrong and painful ones — had led me here.

***

I had the rare opportunity to sublet a place in a beautiful city where available apartments are hard to come by. If I wanted the apartment for a whole year, it was mine. Nothing was tying me down back home — no full-time job, no husband, no obligations. I could do my freelance work from anywhere. Yet I hesitated, exchanging endless WhatsApp messages with my dad.

Was I really ready to move to Amsterdam? To start over? To put an ocean between me and my family? What would I do with my apartment in Brooklyn?

But these were all logistical questions. They were excuses I had made, born of the fear of feeling lonely or untethered. Of not having a solid plan.

“Divorce taught me that the biggest growth spurts come from the most unexpected places.“

When I discussed it with a close friend, she asked, “Why not stay?”

She was right. I signed a one-year lease on the apartment with the canal view, which felt like a doorway to my future. I had no concrete plans, just the gut feeling that this was the right step. Divorce had ripped one door off its hinges, but Amsterdam flung another wide open.

It taught me that the biggest growth spurts come from the most unexpected places. My perfect life had been anything but perfect. Following the societally normative path may have been safe, but it hadn’t brought me happiness. The divorce hadn’t been my choice, but it had been a refresh button, offering an unexpected way forward.

Now, nearly six years later, as I sit by the window of a canal-side café writing this, watching people cycle by, I marvel at the life I’ve quietly built from scratch. When I first moved here, I resisted fully committing. I rented a bike instead of buying one. I avoided opening a bank account. I only rented fully furnished apartments, rather than investing in Amsterdam. I told others I was still trying it out, but really I was telling myself. I was caught up in the excitement of figuring things out — finding the right grocery store, discovering hidden corners of the city, and adapting to a culture where people work to live, not live to work.

These days, I finally get the magic of gezellig, the Dutch art of coziness. It’s more than soft lighting or warm cafés; it’s a sense of feeling close and relaxed, a warmth that wraps around like a fuzzy blanket.

I haven’t traveled everywhere in the world, but no place has felt quite like this. Whenever I return to Amsterdam, I experience a sigh of relief. I’m slipping into something familiar, coming home to a place that offered me everything I needed at a time when I needed everything, when I had no idea what was coming next.

I hadn’t realized it then, when my marriage ended, but losing one life gave me the chance to build a better, bigger, and unexpectedly happier one.

---

If you enjoyed this essay, feel free to like, comment, and/or share it to help more readers find it, and so I know what’s resonating. ♡